ICANN Under Pressure Over Non-Latin Characters

RidcullyTheBrown writes "A story from the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that ICANN is under pressure to introduce non-Latin characters into DNS names sooner rather than later. The effort is being spearheaded by nations in the Middle East and Asia. Currently there are only 37 characters usable in DNS entries, out of an estimated 50,000 that would be usable if ICANN changed naming restrictions. Given that some bind implementations still barf on an underscore, is this really premature?" From the article: "Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could 'break the whole internet', warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey ... Twomey refuses to rush the process, and is currently conducting 'laboratory testing' to ensure that nothing can go wrong. 'The internet is like a fifteen story building, and with international domain names what we're trying to do is change the bricks in the basement,' he said. 'If we change the bricks there's all these layers of code above the DNS ... we have to make sure that if we change the system, the rest is all going to work.'" Given that some societies have used non-Latin characters for thousands of years, is this a bit late in coming?

Comments

What?

[Aladrin]

Wait, so it's not tubes... It's a 15 story building?

Anyone else getting more lost every day?

Re:What?

[rubycodez]

those that live in 15 story buildings made of glass tubes should not throw brick laptop power supplies.

Re:What?

[jmyers]

No, there are only 15 stories about the internet that are just retold with slight modifications. One is about tubes, one about bricks, etc, etc, etc...

Re:What?

[morgan_greywolf]

It's a 15-story building made of tubes and supported by a brick basement, on a flatbed truck headed down the information superhighway.

not the whole internet!

[syrinx]

It won't break the whole Internet! Just DNS. DNS is overrated anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish reading all the new posts on 66.35.250.150.

Break the whole Internet?

[GBWisc]

Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could 'break the whole internet', warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey

Luckily for us, GWB knows that we have some redundancy with the Internets, so if one breaks we can just use another.

That would be a good reason to get the UN in

[aadvancedGIR]

The ICANN tries to give a technical reason to a political problem, although this reason may be valid, it is not a very good idea. With the UN, it will be handled by international comitees and we will all be long dead before they finally agree on which country will be in that comitee.

It's a little late, don't you think?

[krell]

Prince no longer goes by that strange symbol as his name anymore.

Basement

[faqmaster]

"What we're trying to do is change the bricks in the basement."
It's the Internet; so it's more accurate to say we're changing the bricks in your parent's basement.

Better idea!

[EvilRyry]

How 'bout we all just speak English and forget about all those weird letters.

(It was a joke... well sort of)

Huh?

[writermike]

ICANN Under Pressure Over Non-Latin Characters

You mean white people?

Base-Ten BIGOTRY, I say!!!

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish reading all the new posts on 66.35.250.150.

Base-Ten CHAUVINIST!!!

What about societies that use Base 2 [binary], or Base 8 [octal], or Base 16 [hexadecimal]?

Or entire societies, like the British empire, which use no base at all?

12 inches in a foot. 3 feet in a yard. 1760 yards in a mile...

60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in a hour. 24 hours in a day. 7 days in a week. 52 weeks in a year [give or take]...

Or how about base 12?

12 keys in a chromatic scale: A 440, then, logarithmically [give or take a little well-tempering]: A#, B, B# == C [kinda sorta], C#, D, D#, E, E# == F [kinda sorta], F#, G, G#, and finally A 880.

Except that on the continent, things are often just a little sharper - say A 443/444/445 & A 886/888/890...

And let's not even get into water freeezing & boiling at 32 & 212 versus 0 & 100...

Re:Changing a system

[Anonymous Coward]

Changing a system which works is a very, very bad idea.

George? Is that you? We really need to talk about this Gitmo thing openly.

Pléåsé ñø

[bugnuts]

Tht ìs thê £äst thïñg wë ñèêd

Dibs on ©óm

Re:Changing a system

[GeorgeS069]

"37?!!"
"...in a row??"

Internet Layers

[0xABADC0DA]

1. Physical
2. DataLink
...
6. Presentation
7. Application
8. Tubes
9. Bricks
10. Porn
11. Google
12. YouTube
13. ??
...
16. Profit

It was hard enough remembering them all back when there were only 7.

Building, Tubes, What's Next, Hamster Wheel?

[fernandoh26]

"The internet is like a fifteen story building"

Whoa whoa who, wait a minute ... I thought it was a series of tubes? Just when I was beginning to comprehend it! I believe the correct analogy is hamster wheel.